IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/38463.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The risk of divorce and household saving behavior

Author

Listed:
  • González, Libertad
  • Özcan, Berkay

Abstract

We analyze the impact of an increase in the risk of divorce on the saving behaviour of married couples. From a theoretical perspective, the expected sign of the effect is ambiguous. We take advantage of the legalization of divorce in Ireland in 1996 as an exogenous increase in the likelihood of marital dissolution. We analyze the saving behaviour over time of couples who were married before the law was passed. We propose a difference-in-differences approach where we use as comparison groups either married couples in other European countries (not affected by the law change), or Irish families who did not experience a significant increase in the expected risk of divorce (such as very religious families, or single individuals). Our results suggest that the increase in the risk of divorce brought about by the law was followed by an increase in the propensity to save of married couples, consistent with a rise in precautionary savings interpretation. An increase in the risk of marital dissolution of about 40 percent led to a 7 to 13 percent rise in the proportion of married couples reporting positive savings.

Suggested Citation

  • González, Libertad & Özcan, Berkay, 2008. "The risk of divorce and household saving behavior," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 38463, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:38463
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/38463/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Betsey Stevenson, 2007. "The Impact of Divorce Laws on Marriage-Specific Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25, pages 75-94.
    2. Shelly Lundberg & Elaina Rose, 1998. "The Determinants of Specialization Within Marriage," Discussion Papers in Economics at the University of Washington 0048, Department of Economics at the University of Washington.
    3. Browning, Martin, 2000. " The Saving Behaviour of a Two-Person Household," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(2), pages 235-251, June.
    4. Luis Cubeddu & Jose-Victor Rios-Rull, 1997. "Marital risk and capital accumulation," Staff Report 235, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    5. Bargain, Olivier & González, Libertad & Keane, Claire & Özcan, Berkay, 2012. "Female labor supply and divorce: New evidence from Ireland," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1675-1691.
    6. Saku Aura, 2002. "Uncommitted Couples: Some Efficiency and Policy Implications of Marital Bargaining," CESifo Working Paper Series 801, CESifo Group Munich.
    7. Martin Browning & Annamaria Lusardi, 1996. "Household Saving: Micro Theories and Micro Facts," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 1797-1855, December.
    8. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    9. Johnson, William R & Skinner, Jonathan, 1986. "Labor Supply and Marital Separation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 455-469, June.
    10. Laurence R. Iannaccone, 1998. "Introduction to the Economics of Religion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1465-1495, September.
    11. González, Libertad & Viitanen, Tarja K., 2009. "The effect of divorce laws on divorce rates in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 127-138, February.
    12. Papps, Kerry L., 2006. "The Effects of Divorce Risk on the Labour Supply of Married Couples," IZA Discussion Papers 2395, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Lommerud, Kjell Erik, 1989. "Marital Division of Labor with Risk of Divorce: The Role of "Voice" Enforcement of Contracts," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(1), pages 113-127, January.
    14. Laurence R. Iannaccone, 1998. "Corrigenda [Introduction to the Economics of Religion]," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 1941-1941, December.
    15. Betsey Stevenson, 2008. "Divorce Law and Women's Labor Supply," NBER Working Papers 14346, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Lupton, J. & Smith, J.P., 1999. "Marriage, Assets, and Savings," Papers 99-12, RAND - Labor and Population Program.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Filippo Pericoli & Luigi Ventura, 2012. "Family dissolution and precautionary savings: an empirical analysis," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 573-595, December.
    2. Ortigueira, Salvador & Siassi, Nawid, 2013. "How important is intra-household risk sharing for savings and labor supply?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 650-666.
    3. repec:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/692806 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Bargain, Olivier & González, Libertad & Keane, Claire & Özcan, Berkay, 2012. "Female labor supply and divorce: New evidence from Ireland," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1675-1691.
    5. Marie Boltz & Isabelle Chort, 2019. "The Risk of Polygamy and Wives’ Saving Behavior," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 33(1), pages 209-230.
    6. Alessandra Voena, 2015. "Yours, Mine, and Ours: Do Divorce Laws Affect the Intertemporal Behavior of Married Couples?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(8), pages 2295-2332, August.
    7. repec:abk:jajeba:ajebasp.2015.177.184 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Libertad González Luna & Tarja Viitanen, 2008. "The long term effects of legalizing divorce on children," Economics Working Papers 1122, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    9. Helmuth Cremer & Pierre Pestieau & Kerstin Roeder, 2015. "United but (un)equal: human capital, probability of divorce, and the marriage contract," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(1), pages 195-217, January.
    10. Angelini, Viola & Bertoni, Marco & Stella, Luca & Weiss, Christoph T., 2016. "The Ant or the Grasshopper? The Long-term Consequences of Unilateral Divorce Laws on Savings of European Households," IZA Discussion Papers 10363, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Jennifer Roff, 2017. "Cleaning in the Shadow of the Law? Bargaining, Marital Investment, and the Impact of Divorce Law on Husbands' Intrahousehold Work," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(1), pages 115-134.
    12. World Bank, 2013. "Montenegro Gender Diagnostic," World Bank Other Operational Studies 21827, The World Bank.
    13. Yazeed Abdul Mumin & Abubakari Razak & Paul Bata Domanban, 2013. "Analysis of Household Heads? Decision-To-Save with Financial Institutions in Ghana," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 3(11), pages 1466-1478, November.
    14. repec:wly:iecrev:v:60:y:2019:i:3:p:1263-1290 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Marcel Fischer & Natalia Khorunzhina, 2019. "Housing Decision With Divorce Risk," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1263-1290, August.
    16. repec:imx:journl:v:14:y:2019:i:1:p:57-77 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Hans Fehr & Manuel Kallweit & Fabian Kindermann, 2009. "Marital Risk, Family Insurance, and Public Policy," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 226, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    divorce; saving; marriage; divorce law;

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:38463. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (LSERO Manager). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.